Page 102 of Reckless Devotion

She slips through my fingers like water, leaving me breathless and reeling as she allows the officer to turn her away and march her toward the entrance. The sea of captivated guests part, and one nearby face leaps out amongst them.

My blood turns to ice as Jeremy Rènir Junior lifts a champagne glass to me in silent toast, his face contorted into wicked, malignant victory. It all clicks into place at lightning speed…this festering excuse of a man sits at the core of this whole thing. I know a setup when I see one, and something inside me snaps. A deep restraint I’ve constructed to keep back a part of me born of darkness and hate shatters, a ringing sound erupting in my ears as everything fades away except his smug face bathed in a haze of red.

I roar with obsidian fury and launch myself at him.

Chapter 35

CHASE

“What thefuckare you playing at?” Landau chucks his unraveled bow tie onto the small interview table, his face tight with anger.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I growl, the split in my lip reopening.

“Oh, you’re gonna hear it alright.” He flicks the top button of his tuxedo shirt open. “You beat a man to a pulp in a room full of witnesses, and for what? Some chick?”

My lip curls and I rise so fast that my chair tumbles to the ground. “You watch your fucking mouth when you talk about her.”

“Or what? You’re gonna assault me too?”

My nostrils flare as we square off, my brain still spinning like a top at how my night took such a turn. He curses, turning away and thrusting a hand through his black hair and muttering. “Your group are all the fucking same, blowing your life up for a woman.”

I let out a deep lungful of air and turn away, deciding to take a seat on the floor rather than suffer the small flimsy chair with a wonky leg any longer. The back of my head has just dipped to the wall when he speaks again.

“What are you doing?”

“Making myself comfortable. I assume from your bitch fit I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Why the hell do you pay me so much if you think I can’t get you off for a scuffle?” He lifts one eyebrow pointedly, and my mouth parts.

“But then why were you—”

“Because you’re acting like a fucking idiot and it pissed me off!” Landau barks, his brows knotting into a scowl. Despite his obvious frustration, he leans over and offers me his hand.

I take it, rising to stand with my patience in tattered pieces. “We need to go and see Glen. Right now.”

“There is no need.” Landau drops my hand and walks over to the door, rapping his knuckle twice on the reinforced window. “He’s already here and he wants to speak with you.”

A low buzzing sound cuts the air, and the door opens to reveal Glen Powers, Attorney General for the state of New York.

“Glen, I need your help.” I cut right to the chase. The time for formalities and polite greetings has passed, and every second that Pepper sits in a cell somewhere is a second wasted.

“I can’t help you with Miss Quinn’s case.” The tall man slides his hands into the pockets of his sharp suit, the grey creeping up from his ears glowing in the halogen light.

“That’s not good enough. My family spent a lot of money to help you get elected. You owe me.” I curl my hands over the back of the chair and grip tightly, needing an anchor and not caring how many fucking lines I cross if it means Pepper home safe with me. Heaven and Earth—that’s the way it has to be.

“And I’m grateful for that, but this isn’t a misdemeanor. It’s a federal case, Chase. It’s bigger than youorme. She pissed off a lot of powerful people, and this directive comes all the way from the top.”

The structure I’ve so logically built my life around shakes, foundations threatening to crumble. Because my whole adult life, I’ve made damn sure that my happiness is my own—that my emotional safety is my own—and here, suddenly, I find it tied to something else. Tosomeoneelse. The power that takes away from me is terrifying.

“There has to be something you can do,” I croak, grappling with his words.

He sighs, swiping a hand down his face. “Well, there is one small thing.”

***

This night is turning into one from hell.

“Emily?”